How effectively have you been leading in 2022?

At the beginning of this year, to help leaders successfully navigate the complexities and uncertainties of a post pandemic world, we brought into sharp focus four fundamental domains of leadership:

1. Leading self
2. Leading others
3. Leading within the context of one’s organisation, and
4. Leading within the sphere of the global community

For each of these areas, an SMG domain expert provided one guiding principle – as a compass for leaders to chart a course for the year ahead.

In this article, we look in the rear view mirror to provide a summary of each of these themes and how each of these ideas have played out over these last ten months.

Leading Self  

The Big Idea: Leading yourself will be crucial to staying the course

Summary: The pandemic was a great equaliser — but it didn’t affect everyone equally. For some, it was a traumatic experience with implications for their mental health. For others, it was an opportunity for renewal and recovery, a once-in a-lifetime opportunity to shift towards something different, whether that was a lifestyle change, career change, or a reassessment of values and life priorities. The challenges for leaders this year has been to recognise where each member of their team sits on this continuum and support them appropriately. Developing this level of emotional intelligence begins with understanding yourself and dealing with your own mental and emotional response to the ever-changing context.

Pulse Check

Staying the course in terms of energy levels has proved to be more challenging than anticipated. Kathleen Hogan, Chief People Officer at Microsoft in a recent LinkedIn article coined the term “Human Energy Crisis.” She points out that since the start of the pandemic, the workday span has increased more than 13% and after-hours and weekend work are up 28% and 14% respectively. In her article she says, “The Human Energy Crisis calls for a new kind of workplace sustainability that’s an imperative for every organization. Leaders, the task ahead of us is about regenerating energy for our employees at work and ensuring it’s renewable and sustainable.”

Leading others

The big idea: 2022 has been a reset for the human connection

Summary: As a social species, we’re designed to adapt to challenges and existential threats by connecting and working together. That is largely what happened throughout the pandemic, and in the time since.

In our research on leadership during COVID, the most effective leaders:
a) maintained their connections with staff, really understanding their experiences; and
b) connected people with each other in and outside the organisation.

While these efforts went a long way to maintain social connections, the reality was that the more meaningful emotional connections were depleted by the prolonged lockdowns and working patterns that isolated us from each other.

The challenge – and opportunity – was for leaders to find and discover new ways to forge these meaningful connections within their teams and across their organisation.

Pulse Check

Hybrid working seems to be here to stay, especially in Australia which has the highest percentage of hybrid workers in the world, according to this Adaptavist study. Within this new paradigm, resetting the human connection is very much still a critical focus area, with Dr. Richard Osibanjo in Forbes concluding that “Organizational leaders, designers, and employee experience experts must make creating “meaningful connections” one of the design criteria to close the connection gap and make the post-pandemic workplace successful.”

Leading within the Organisation

The big idea: the digital workplace has redefined the role of the manager

Summary: The digital workplace isn’t simply a set of technologies; it’s a way of working.

Digital is now embedded as a toolkit for hybrid working. Work is getting done, people come together organically to solve complex challenges, and create a seamless experience for customers.

Managers are still essential but play a different role in a digital business than in a traditional business. The challenge for executives in the world of hybrid work continues to be solidifying new ways of working and redefining the role of managers in a digital workplace. Some managers struggled to redefine their roles when work processes and teams are virtual. Some have made a smooth transition to the manager-as-coach-facilitator-motivator model.

Pulse Check

Leaders are still evolving their style in response to the shift to technology-facilitated hybrid working styles. A recent article from McKinsey, How to lead in a hybrid environment, stresses the importance of managing performance through impact and outcomes and encouraging collaboration between teams – all strengths of the manager-as-coach-facilitator-motivator rather than managers of process.

Leading in the community

The big idea: Leaders need to balance corporate responsibility and sustainability

Priorities changed for many people and organisations: with concepts of “balance” and “sustainability” increasingly important to us across the many parts of our lives. Perhaps even more so, since COVID-19 shone a light on the interconnectivity between us as individuals, as part of families and workplaces, communities and as inhabitants of the planet.

This shift reached the corporate sector too, affecting how companies operate and engage with the broader community. Whilst governments and corporations are scrambling to hold the global economy together in the wake of the pandemic, stakeholders are losing patience with corporations driven by an obsessive motivation to maximise shareholder returns through a pure pursuit of profit.

Pulse Check

According to this AFR article, key global players are indeed focusing on non-financial and systemic risks in 2022 and beyond. Driven by shareholders who want to see longer term thinking rather than just short-term return, organisations are increasingly evaluating their ESG commitments as a non-financial measure of success.

Leaders who deeply appreciate the long-term value that is created when organisations prioritise ESG are more likely to articulate their commitment to their teams and demonstrate how their values align with those of the business. Organisations that authentically lead with their values are more likely to attract and retain quality talent, and leaders can more easily find ways to connect individual output to a greater purpose.

About the authors